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Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#131

Post by onetimemanytime »

blunte wrote: post #97
cabalamat wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. Airports are usually shown on maps. I would expect most people to know what a map is. (If they don't, because e.g. they have cognitive issues, maybe they need to get someone to help them). > It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. People making big purchases should do due dilligence.

Loudness of aircraft nearby can vary greatly due to weather conditions. It is quite possible that a location (near an airport) can be relatively quiet one season and very loud another. And if you go home shopping during the quiet period, you may not realize just what you're in for a few months later.

>>Loudness of aircraft nearby can vary greatly due to weather conditions.

So what the Gov to do, ground all air traffic in certain weather conditions? Air travel is a fact of life and planes must land in airports.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#132

Post by cyberferret »

c54 wrote: post #83
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Honestly, this line really grinds my gears. Let me explain: First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. Also remember that the loudness and frequency of air travel can change a lot . An airpla…

I appreciate your example especially since it’s something you couldn’t really have looked up beforehand. Imagine searching “raves til 5am in my area” But flight paths are a known known. Maps exist. Noise level maps exist. Airport locations, runway directions, departing and arriving flight paths (and altitudes!) all exist. Caveat emptor, you got a “good deal” on a house because it’s in a loud area. If you cared about…

Once again - anecdotal evidence from my own experience - when we bought our house, which was the biggest purchase of our lives, we made sure that during the cooling off period before final settlement, we spent a lot of time parking our car on the street where our house was and walking around.

Day time, night time, weekends, working hours, we spent at least 30 to 60 minutes in the neighbourhood on multiple occasions to see what the noise and traffic levels were like amongst many other factors. I cannot believe that most people don't do this more often when looking to settle in a family home that you are going to live in (and possibly raise children) for a large chunk of your lives.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#133

Post by cyberferret »

adrr wrote: post #125
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Honestly, this line really grinds my gears. Let me explain: First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. Also remember that the loudness and frequency of air travel can change a lot . An airpla…

Sounds like something technology can solve. Service that you can pay to find out noise pollution and other nuisances for a given address.

It is an opportunity. Much like Nomadlist rates remote working locations on various important factors, it would be good if there could be a neighbourhood rating system that included things like traffic and noise levels. I am sure something already exists.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#134

Post by cyberferret »

tjr225 wrote: post #98
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Honestly, this line really grinds my gears. Let me explain: First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. Also remember that the loudness and frequency of air travel can change a lot . An airpla…

The entire city of Seattle is under a flight path. I can hear a jet right now!

I would hope that most people who visit/buy in Seattle would realise that one of the biggest airplane manufacturers in the world is based there (and has been for nearly a century), and that there are several airports spread around the city with lots of traffic. I find it really difficult to understand that this wouldn't be a factor with anyone who was looking to purchase a property in the city.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#135

Post by cyberferret »

Anechoic wrote: post #32
cyberferret wrote: post #23

Just wondering if these devices are only issued to people who had houses in that area before the airport was built. IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Modern aviation is already far quieter, and there are plenty of regulations in place to minimise the noise footprint (e.g. modern fanjet engines are far quieter than the older turbojets,…

IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. It's not just about knowingly purchasing a home under a flight path, it's also about the commitments made by airports and airlines. For example, an excessive noise event may be caused by a pilot not following a proper noise abatement procedure. And while airplanes have gotten quieter over the last 30…

I totally support pulling up pilots who break the noise abatement rules. If these devices were used as intended, we could expect sudden occasional spikes in reports to pin point a flight where the pilot strayed too low etc., but I expect that these devices will mostly be used by irate people who just keep stabbing the button several times a day every time they cannot hear their television clearly.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#136

Post by zhoujianfu »

ams6110 wrote: post #101

I thought I was going to read about a home-sized noise cancelling system that you could activate by pressing a button when you heard an airplane overhead.

Me too! I’d just been thinking a few days ago how amazing an invention like that would be... no more concerns about neighbors or trains or airplanes or drones... lots of property values would increase and zoning laws would become obsolete if such a thing existed.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#137

Post by wildmusings »

Zanni wrote: post #82
signal11 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even before this, researchers have noticed that a few people generate a disproportionate number of noise complaints (both links from 2016): US: https://www.mercatus.org/publications/airport-noise-nimbyism UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37803205 (half of the around 25,000 complaints were made by 10 people) I wonder if these people are more susceptible to noise than others, or are simply more tolerant of / m…

On the disproportionate number of noise complaints from a few people: I've noticed in my own case that there was a huge bar to making my first noise complaint (I don't live under a flight path, but across from a beach park where people like to party after hours and blast loud music). The first few times I suffered through it. Eventually it was so bad, I went out at 3am to ask, politely, for them to keep it down (the…

Your story is a great illustration of how accurate data can lead people to wrong conclusions. There’s no substitute for a qualitative understanding of the phenomenon being studied.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#138

Post by sgustard »

chacha102 wrote: post #41

Why only complain about something when you remember to press a button? At some point, someone is just going to hook up a decibel meter and automatically press the button when it hits a threshold. It might file a couple of bad complaints, but if the noise difference is significant, you could definitely increase your throughput.

My neighborhood has car alarms which serve a similar function (to warn of excessive noise or vibration by emitting louder noise.)

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#139

Post by sgustard »

cyberferret wrote: post #23

Just wondering if these devices are only issued to people who had houses in that area before the airport was built. IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Modern aviation is already far quieter, and there are plenty of regulations in place to minimise the noise footprint (e.g. modern fanjet engines are far quieter than the older turbojets,…

Flight paths change. It's been a big issue for these folks in some pricey neighborhoods:

"The FAA implemented NextGen, changed flight procedures, and moved vast quantities of jet traffic over Palo Alto."

http://www.skypossepaloalto.org/

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#140

Post by slavak »

cyberferret wrote: post #135
Anechoic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. It's not just about knowingly purchasing a home under a flight path, it's also about the commitments made by airports and airlines. For example, an excessive noise event may be caused by a pilot not following a proper noise abatement procedure. And while airplanes have gotten quieter over the last 30…

I totally support pulling up pilots who break the noise abatement rules. If these devices were used as intended, we could expect sudden occasional spikes in reports to pin point a flight where the pilot strayed too low etc., but I expect that these devices will mostly be used by irate people who just keep stabbing the button several times a day every time they cannot hear their television clearly.

In fact, the article makes it clear that this is exactly the case:

' “Oh, the joy, the sheer pleasure of pushing that button and seeing the complaints mount up,” she wrote in response to a reporter’s query. “We are over 115,000 complaints for BWI, more than 35,000 in just the past 30 days! So now when MAA wants to know ‘which flight bothered you,’ I have a real answer! ALL OF THEM.” '

Sure, noise complaints can be valid. Even saying "all the flights bother me" may, in some cases, indicate a real problem with the noise abatement procedures at the airport. In 99% of cases, however, noise complaints are simply NIMBYism, or people for whom any amount of noise is too much. Everyone wants to fly somewhere on vacation, or order cheap products from China online and have them delivered by air within a few days. Aviation is necessary, and airplanes need to land somewhere, but too many people are unwilling to tolerate even a small amount of discomfort to allow that. It doesn't matter that there's literally nowhere you can put an airport where the planes wouldn't fly over someone's house, as long as it's not _their_ house...

For every legitimate complaint caused by changes in approach procedures or the use of new navigation technology, there are 10,000 that can be summed up with "flying a hundred tons of steel through the air generates sound, more news at 11!" All it achieves is drown out the real problems in a sea of pointless griping.

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